Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. My state is a bit of an outlier, in that our teachers ARE more lowly paid than national averages, but then my locality is one of the higher paying supplements to teacher pay.

Why do I say pay is a problem? I've seen what happens to many good teachers. They get burned out from having to deal with trouble maker kids who if they get disciplined or get bad grades the parents go ape shit with allegations of racism, sexism, abuse, whatever. They get burned out from dealing with helicopter parents. They get burned out from, in most parts of the country, being governed by elected shitty school boards. They get burned out because some miscreant has an IEP and a 504 plan and so his stealing from classmates and being constantly disrupted is considered a manifestation of his disability and everyone else just has to deal with it.

Good teachers have job flexibility. I've seen multiple _great_ teachers go to work for companies like IXL where their starting salaries are always higher than what they were making as seasoned teachers. Others go the administrator route and become principals, superintendents, etc. Others go to teach at private schools where the pay is often better.

What I would propose is basically 3 things:

1. Get rid of habitually low performing teachers--every year get rid of your worst teachers
2. Increase pay for high performing teachers
3. And the kicker that I have no idea how to do--allow schools and teachers to apply standards and discipline without fear of lawsuits.

I think that plays into it too. In many--most--school districts, teachers effectively have tenure--it takes serious malfeasance or illegality to get fired.

Years of bad performance isn't enough.

I think part of the solution has to be dramatically increasing teacher pay but you also have to make the working environment better.

There is basically no, or very little, support for this position, and even stating it publicly would get you called a racist.

I just don't see a solution.

Pretty much all of the US ethnic groups do better than those from the "origin" countries do. US Asians outperform East Asian Asians. US Euros outperform Europeans. US Africans outperform African Africans (though there is a less data for the continent).

You chose to post this anonymously. I don't blame you. Even discussing the possibility of this is a hard thing to discuss. I don't see a societal solution.

I attended a (public) middle school teacher meeting about two years ago. The 8th grade math teacher said "I am supposed to be teaching XYZ for the 8th grade statewide standardized math test. I can't do it. Around 1/3 of my students can't multiply two numbers. They don't know." (She went on in this vein--it wasn't laughing or flippant, it was a cry for help)

She didn't say 1/3 of her students struggled with some of their multiplication tables, or algebraic concepts, it was that they literally didn't know how multiplication works.

I used to quiz my kids every morning with short "head math" problems starting in K and 1st grade. I started simple "2+2" .. "5+5" ... "6+7". Eventually I added multiple steps "1 + 4 + 3 - 2" or "6 + 7 - 2 + 10". I did the same starting in maybe 3rd / 4th grade with multiplication tables.

One of my kids ended up being an academic high flyer. The other still, to this day, struggles with math. He somehow worked his way into an advanced math class, but he has to work his ass of in there for Bs and Cs.

I am very sympathetic to people who aren't mathematically inclined, but these problems are embarassingly easy.

So I have a serious question for you (this comes on the heels of me doing a deep dive on PISA testing results, and it honestly has been weighing heavily on my mind lately).

I 100% believe that socioeconomic factors are probably the single biggest factor in academic success.

Is there any possibility that average population-wide genetics play a role in academic success? (I very much do NOT want to use the word "race" because I think it's basically meaningless). Is it possible that, on average, Americans with a large Far East Asian genetic component perform academically better than, on average, American students with primarily Western European backgrounds? What about those with large sub-Saharan African genetic components? Etc.

The question really is--is it _possible_?

My answer is that yes, I think it's possible. I don't think academic achievement is the most important thing out there, but it's important.

And, if it's possible? What the heck do we, in a free and democratic society do about it?

It's bleak and dystopian to think about!

My oldest son goes to a high school on the other side of the country. It has an award winning Engineering magnet program. Every year multiple students from this school go to Ivies and other top 25 schools.

Simultaneously, ~55% of the school is poverty level, ~45% is low English proficiency, and about 30% of the students are considered habitually absent (meaning a minimum of 10 _unexcused_ absences).

My son is taking APs, very intensive engineering classes, and participating in multiple extracurricular activities.

In the same school building, more than half of the students regularly rank in less than the 30th percentile on both math and English end of grade tests.

What I commonly hear from teachers and administrators--if you're a teacher teaching classes of the poverty level non-English speakers, what good does it do to fail them? They're just going to drop out anyway. Maybe if you encourage the kids along, a few will get something out of it?

It's an awful situation to be in. The school has at least a dozen ELL teachers. The school offers pretty much all the standard freshman courses (English, US History, etc) in both Spanish and English versions. This drains so many resources from other parts of the school. The arts program operates on a shoestring and all the arts programs are constantly fundraising to keep the lights on.

The soccer team is damn good, though..

So everyone and everything is to blame except removing standardized testing as an admission criteria in California (2021), schools in CA being closed for in-person education for ~2 years due to Covid, and perhaps most importantly, California adopting a a radical new math curriculum that focused on equity and removing cultural barriers in math education. (See, e.g., EdWeek

Right, it's Republicans (all those nasty California Republicans who dominate state and local governments) that have put us in this mess!

It's weird how the Pedophile Trash always want to argue the definition. Sex trafficking of minors means pedophilia, you disgusting subhuman worthless kidraper.

REPUBLICANS demanded the date, and Trump promised to veto the law without it. Shut up and shoot yourself you Lying Treasonous America Hating Klan Shitbag Retardican.

This is false, you Lying Klan Fuckface. REPUBLICANS insisted on the timer and Trump promised to veto unless the timer was in the law. This is very clear from the record, just as clear as the fact that every one of you America-Hating Retarded Repukelikan Klan Shitbags is incapable of honesty.

The Pro-Lie Nazi Republicans are incapable of being honest. It's that simple. Every one of them is a disgusting, inhuman malignant sociopath.

If they want to win, the people need to see and experience the true impact of the laws passed by the Republicans.

That has been happening. More importantly, people need to see that Democrats are willing to stand up and fight rather than just rolling over for every nasty thing the Republicans are doing.

The Democrats are just terrible at strategy. Really, really bad.

In the sense that the elder Democratic Party leadership kept trying to play by the rules while the Republicans proved they are dishonest sociopathic fucks incapable of fair and honest behavior, you are correct. What we are seeing right now is that the younger Democratic leadership are taking charge and not playing along with Republican dishonesty any more. And again, part of the Democratic Party regaining support is proving by action that they are willing to fight.

Add to that, government shutdowns are just stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. The laws have already been passed, and now we just have to write the check to pay for what was already done. And trying to use it as a tool to force Republicans - many of whom would be happy if the government were shutdown forever - to negotiate? Not going to work.

Democrats negotiated and the party consensus is that Schumer "caved" last March during the prior budget negotiations. And what happened right after March? Republicans promptly RENEGED ON THE AGREEMENTS anyways, first canceling many promised policy votes and then using "rescission" to remove approved funding from various programs. The Republicans proved that they cannot be trusted.

So now the Democrats are actually fighting. And they're making it clear that this time, they're not just going to cave. And the proof that it's actually working? Look at Tuesday's election results.

EVERY open governor's race went Democrat, and not only that, all three beat the polling predictions by a pretty big margin.

California voted to redistrict and say "Fuck Texas" by an almost 2/3 majority.

Pennsylvania retained all 3 Democratic supreme court members by double-digit margins.

Dear Retarded MAGA Fuckwit and Likely Pedophile:

Why aren't the victims naming the people who victimized them? Because they are scared for their safety since many of the offenders are in powerful positions, like Treasonous Pedophilic Sack of Criminal Shit Donald Judas Trump.

Oh, and BTW, was Epstein accused of pedophilia? The official charges were: sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. Read that again and again until you understand it, you Dishonest Fucking Lying Pedophile.